Nobody should be surprised that Asaduddin Owaisi, the leader of AIMIM and a member of the Hyderabad Lok Sabha, attacked Pakistan. Owaisi is a nationalist and right-wing politician. Although his AIMIM and the Razakars have a mixed past, Owaisi has remained adamant and one of the most outspoken detractors of Pakistan, even as several high-ranking Congress officials softened their stance. He is also thwarting Pakistan’s most cunning and evil strategy by doing this.
One of the harshest attacks on Pakistan by an Indian leader since the Pahalgam attack is Owaisi’s. He goes on to explain his politics by saying that it happened on Sunday while he was in Parbhani, Maharashtra, at a rally opposing the new waqf law. He said though Pakistan’s standard time was 30 minutes behind India’s, in reality the Islamic republic was lagging behind India by half a century. “This act [Pahalgam attack] shows you are the successors of ISIS,” Owaisi said, referring to the massacre of 26 people who were singled out as non-Muslims and shot dead from close range in south Kashmir on April 22.
Owaisi was reacting to criticism from Pakistani authorities on India’s nuclear threats and response to the Pahalgam attack. “Our military budget is bigger than your national budget. Pakistani leaders should not threaten India with a nuclear war. They should remember that if they kill innocent people in another country, no one will remain silent,” Owaisi said in Maharashtra on Sunday.
While some Congress leaders adopted a more moderate stance, Owaisi launched a full-scale assault on Pakistan. Mani Shankar Aiyar, a veteran Congress leader, questioned whether the Pahalgam terror incident served as a sombre reminder of the unaddressed problems resulting from India’s Partition and the 1971 war with Pakistan. “Till today we are living with the consequences of that Partition. Is that the unresolved questions of the Partition reflected in the terrible tragedy… in Pahalgam on April 22?” Aiyar asked.
Saifuddin Soz, a former Union minister and Congress leader, supported the stance taken by the Pakistani establishment following the incident. “If Pakistan takes a stand that they are not involved in the Pahalgam attack, then we should accept Pakistan’s word,” Soz told news agency.
In his politics, Asaduddin Owaisi is a right-wing Islamist who has tried to be the voice of the Muslims in India. He has strongly opposed the most recent waqf law, and during a period when the majority of opposition politicians resorted to bluster, his address in the Lok Sabha was among the strongest fact-based arguments.
The All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) organised the rally on Sunday as a protest against the waqf law. By criticising Pakistan during a rally against the waqf law, Owaisi has distinguished between a Pakistan-sponsored terror act and a problem involving Indian Muslims.
Several liberal Islamists have frequently been called pro-Pakistan and subjected to the “Go to Pakistan” teasing. Owaisi has disapproved of the Two-Nation Theory, which was the foundation for the establishment of Pakistan and holds that Muslims and Hindus are two completely different groups. “Historically, this was one country, and unfortunately it was divided,” Owaisi said in 2023.
Asaduddin Owaisi referred to the Indian Partition as “wrong” and held all of the leaders of the era “responsible” for it in his speech from 2023. “All the leaders who were there at that time were all responsible [for Partition]. If you read a book by Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, ‘India wins Freedom’, Maulana Azad asked all the Congress leaders then that the country should not be divided,” he said.
After the Partition, the leaders of the Muslim League, which championed the Two-Nation Theory, moved to Pakistan. It was the leaders of the Congress, like Maulana Azad, who were seen as representatives of the community. With the rise of the BJP on the twin planks of nationalism and Hindutva, the Congress tried to play catch up with “soft Hindutva”.
That is how the Asaduddin Owaisi-led AIMIM sensed an opportunity and tried to spread to areas with a sizeable Muslim population across India. Its electoral success, however, has been limited, and the major opposition parties have branded it “BJP’s Team B”, alleging it was out to split the minority votes. Owaisi, meanwhile, has tried to become the voice of Indian Muslims, criticising the BJP on the issues of the Babri Masjid demolition, the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the waqF law.
During the general election in 2024, Owaisi took a swipe at the Prime Minister, saying “Modi ki guarantee” was nothing but a “guarantee of hatred of Muslims”. While criticising the power of the Centre, Owaisi has seen to it that Pakistan wasn’t allowed the use of the minority card to speak on India’s Muslims. Take, for example, Owaisi’s speech of 2023 in Mumbai in which he attacked then-Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan, and the Pakistani leadership, saying they shouldn’t be speaking about Indian Muslims. He said Pakistan should not worry about Indian Muslims as they are here by choice after refusing Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s proposal in 1947.
In that speech, Owaisi, like everyone in India, blamed Pakistan for the 2019 Pulwama attack, in which terrorists killed 40 CRPF personnel. Owaisi’s selection of phrases — ‘worse than the Khawarij’, successors of ISIS, Jaish-e-Shaitan and Lashkar-e-Shaitan — to criticise Pakistan and the terrorists is unlike by any other Indian leader. “I would like to tell the outfit that killed our 40 men and claimed its responsibility, you’re not Jaish-e-Mohammed, you are Jaish-e-Shaitan… You are Jaish-e-Shaitan, Jaish-e-Iblis. Masood Azhar, you are not a Maulana, you are a disciple of the devil. It is not Laskhar-e-Taiba, it is Lashkar-e-Shaitan,” Owaisi said in 2023.
He claimed that the attackers were “worse than the Khawarij” in his most recent critique. An early Islamic group known for its radical beliefs and rigid interpretation of Islamic teaching was the Khwarij, also known as the Kharijites.
A week after Pakistan Army Chief General Asim Munir’s scathing speech, there was a terror assault in Pahalgam when the assailants asked tourists to read the Kalma to confirm if they were Muslims and then shot and killed non-Muslims. “Our ancestors thought that we were distinct from Hindus in every way imaginable. We practise a different faith. Our traditions are distinct. General Munir stated on April 16 that this was the basis for the Two-Nation Theory.
This was dog-whistling as well as a signal to Pakistani terror assets. This was a Pakistani general’s unusual anti-Hindu statement. That was the direction of the April 22 strike. Its collective colour was intentional. That dividing propaganda has been shattered by Asaduddin Owaisi. By utilising language and his unique manner to criticise Pakistan and the terror network it supports, he has thwarted the cunning plot. A nationalist, particularly a right-wing Muslim, could have dealt the greatest blow to Pakistan’s evil scheme.
